2007-09-06

The sporting life

The NCAA proposes the following nine indicators of "good sportsmanship" (their definition is hardly free of solipsism, but is nice and concrete):

Good Sportsmanship Indicators:

Respect for officials - student-athletes raise hand or arm to signal a foul.

Student-athletes shake hands before and after the contest.

Unsportsmanlike behavior violations are addressed appropriately.

Inappropriate conduct by coaches has consequences.

Appropriate recognition when competitor gets injured and is forced to leave the competition.

Fans, coaches and student-athletes are held accountable for negative behavior.

Fans are enthusiastic supporters of their teams but respectful to opposing teams and their supporters.

There is a respect shown by all competitors for the opposing team.

Gamesmanship by coaches or players is frowned upon.

One of the images that appears frequently in the list is that of the "student-athlete." In that spirit, here Darko Miličić applies, in his explanation of his team's dismal performance, what he has learned in his courses on obstetrics:

Unfortunately, this type of rage demonstrated by Milicic is very typical of a certain segment of Serbian society, the segment which led Serbia to wars, glorifies Arkan, Karadzic and Mladic and elects the Radicals as the strongest political party in Serbia.

Interesting how you always post trivial stuff if it makes Serbs look bad, brings forth hate and prejudice against them, while you ignore the larger more important stories such as the deaths of 11 Croatian firefighters:

I remember the firefighters misfortune, it happened when I was taking a break from the blog. It's sort of mystifying how anyone might think that incident is comparable to a basketball player making an idiot of himself. As far as Serbs go, every response I have seen indicates that they are just as put off by Milicic as anyone else -- maybe more so, since he is, sadly enough, in a position to represent them.

In response to the earlier anonymous poster, there might be some sort of relation there, but it would take some very interesting evidence to show that political positions and vulgarity vary together.